


Sunshadow

by goldfinch



Category: The Borgias
Genre: Astrology, Gen, Leaving Home, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 14:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3175988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfinch/pseuds/goldfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cesare’s robes are the color of fresh blood and his eyes burn like a wild thing in the woodlands, a predator in wait. This is a man he could follow. There is a knife against his throat and Micheletto's whole body is vibrating; there is a knife a half inch from his eye and he wants to press forward. There are some things you do even though they will destroy you. There are some things that have lain in wait for you since the day you were born.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunshadow

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Солнечная тень](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12400365) by [Gevion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gevion/pseuds/Gevion)



> fyi the astrology is shoddily researched, at best ;)

Micheletto’s mother is superstitious. She watches the planets with a careful eye, charting lines with all the concentration of a true astrologer: Mars conjunct the ascendant; abscission of light. You should wait two days, she tells Micheletto’s father, before you begin the harvest. The stars —

His father’s hand across her mouth is sharp, harsh in the muffled dryness of the house. I will do what I like, his father says.

Later, when the moon has risen full and yellow overhead and his father lies sleeping in his parents’ bed, reeking of wine, Micheletto folds open his mother’s book. Mars ascendant. Mars, he knows, is the Roman god of war, of violence, of battle and bloodshed. In the book the planet is red, pale and thin as an octopus’s tentacles when he pulls it from a fisherman’s net, still living, despite the trek inland.

Mars ascendant.

He is seventeen. He feels stronger than he ever has.

 

 

 

 

The funeral is held the day after, according to the astrologer’s recommendation. In many things Micheletto’s mother charts her own horoscope, but for this she goes to the man even Girolamo Riario consults, who smells like camphor and fish but whose lines are as straight as God’s. She is in tears when she goes, and in tears when she returns. Tomorrow, she tells Micheletto. It must be tomorrow.

And all the better. The corpse is already beginning to smell.

He thinks of taking the book with him when he goes, considering what it did for him, but it cost his mother more ducats than he knew their family had, even for her plain, sloppily-stitched copy. So he leaves it. Takes only what is his.

They say all roads lead to Rome, but it takes him days and days to get there, through hills and across streams. He is passable with a bow, but has only his hunting knife; he sets traps instead, snares rabbits and sells their skins, eats their flesh. He watches the stars at night, and though they are silent then, in dreams he hears them whispering, leading their own lives, as alien and unknowable as the lives of kings and popes.

 

 

 

 

His father’s blood sings invisible on his skin when he first offers to kill a man for money. The man speaking casts one doubtful eye over him, then looks into his coin purse. Half a ducat if you make it back alive, he says, and laughs.

Three hours later Micheletto has returned, with one of the man’s shoes as proof. It is a distinctive shoe, with iron buckles and stitching along the edge; he has the other in his bag, and will wear them when he is done here.

He collects his half ducat, but the man demands the shoe, so Micheletto tosses the other into the Tiber as he walks home, to his tiny apartment in the worst part of town, where the air smells like shit and dying and he can hardly see the stars. But an assassin has little use for stars and astrologers, for superstition and uncertainties and trust, he learns. Micheletto has more need for the money it costs. Horoscopes are expensive. And yet he still finds himself staring up, some nights, when he is away from his bed and hungry, stalking some hungrier man in the dark, tracking constellations he knows as they turn through the sky. Orion in his belt. The crab, the lion, the dark spaces in between.

Years pass. He does not know what planet is in the sky when Cardinal Orsini comes to him in the dark, but he can guess.

 

 

 

 

Cesare Borgia’s robes are the color of fresh blood and his eyes burn like a wild thing in the woodlands, a predator in wait. This is a man he could follow. There is a knife against his throat and his whole body is vibrating; there is a knife an inch from his eye and he wants to press forward. There are some things you do even though they will destroy you. There are some things that have lain in wait for you since the day you were born. 

Micheletto has not looked up in years except to see if it will rain that day, but he looks at Cesare and feels all of the heavens rushing through him, calling, singing to him in a language he has long forgotten, but still understands. 

Mars ascendant. Aut Caesar aut nihil.

 

 

 

 

“My mother believed the heavens had some power over us,” he says, resting in the saddle as they ride. Cesare is half asleep on the horse beside him; he rouses, and Micheletto can hear the stickiness of sleep in his mouth when he speaks.

“My uncle’s predecessor consulted an astrologer before every conclave. My father told me once that that weakness was why my uncle was able to achieve the papacy when the old Pope died.”

“And yet, you believe in Fortuna.”

“She favors me, true, but because I demand it. One cannot sit idly by, awaiting one’s destiny.” Cesare smiles. In the dark his mouth is a wicked slice of light. “And what of you, Micheletto? Do you believe as your mother did, that our fates are governed by higher forces?”

Micheletto pauses. It is true that Cesare has just woken, that is he tired and hungry and aching for bed, just as Micheletto is, but even now he feels compelled to step carefully, as though Cesare’s gaze might cut him if he moves too quickly, if he speaks without thinking. His lord’s eyes catch the light of Micheletto’s torch, burning. “I believe we make choices,” he says. “And that those choices affect change in us. But I also believe there are things in life that choose us. People, circumstances.” He tilts his head toward Cesare’s hip, his sword, “Vocations. In some things, perhaps the heavens do have power over us. But I do not know if that is Fate, or simply inclination. Perhaps a bit of both.”

“You should have been a diplomat,” Cesare says, but his voice is fond, his smile sleepy and soft.

“No. I fear I would be too wont to kill the man on the other side of the table,” Micheletto says, voice as flat as he can make it. “If you ordered me.”

Cesare sits silent for a long moment, the clip-clop of their horses’ hooves and the creak of their saddles a familiar rhythm. “Perhaps you'd best stay where you are, then,” he says eventually. "I should hate to lose you to the Florentines, after all. Or, god forbid, to Venice." 

He laughs. It's a clear night, but all Micheletto can see is right beside him.


End file.
